


the kindly ones

by irnan



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: F/F, Genderswap, alwaysagirl!tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 01:52:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Webster said it was better to be fortunate than wise - well, says Tony. <i>I</i> say: is it too much to ask for both?</p>
            </blockquote>





	the kindly ones

**Author's Note:**

> I realise this is a controversial subject matter, so (based on previous experience) I feel I ought to make it clear from the start that any opinions expressed in this fic regarding feminism and femininity and gender issues and _any_ issues in general were picked and chosen by the author to specifically match the characterisation of the, well, characters.
> 
> Sometimes these views are sort of offensive and not very nice. In large part this is because Tony Stark is a privileged dickhead even when he doesn't have a dick.
> 
> For further reading on the subject of the Honourary Man/Warrior Queen thing that Tony has going on here, allow me to recommend Antonia Fraser's book _The Warrior Queens. Boadicea's Chariot_.

And so you see, the real difference is – well, the difference is a vagina and a vulva and a uterus and breasts and all the biological stuff you get that makes the nurse come out and say _Congratulations Mr Stark, you have a beautiful little daughter_ instead of _Congratulations Mr Stark, you have a bouncing baby boy_ , but the _real_ difference is that Howard Stark is an inventor, and a hardass, and a loner, and damaged in all his own perfectly unique ways, and has kind of a twisted sense of humour, so that when his (according to the papers) delicately lovely precious little girl turns out to be not so delicate, not to mention capable of out-engineering the entire country, he is so goddamn proud he just about bursts with it.

 

Fast forward a few (forty) years.

There’s an orphaned princess grieving alone in a tower, building marvels and waiting for someone to come and save her, someone to be there for her like her Dad always was, and she sits and builds and drinks and cries and tells, tells, _tells_ herself that he loved her for her, and not because she was some unexpected freak of nature, some disconcerting new creature no one ever thought would exist: a girl, who’s a genius engineer.

Not Howard. Not her Dad.

(Tony is a genius engineer, who’s a girl. Why is this differentiation so fucking difficult for people to grasp?)

_I’m so glad you and Howard are this close, cara mia_ , Mom used to say. _I worried, you know, when you were little, because I wasn’t sure he’d know what to do with a daughter_.

Maria Stark didn’t really number tact among her virtues. Her daughter doesn’t either, but that’s not because she’s clueless; it’s because Dad didn’t need it, so why should she?

 

She’s a filthy slut before she’s twenty-five and supposedly pregnant at least twice a year – usually by Rhodey. She’s a vicious heartless bitch who can’t stand to lose; she’s a screw-up, she’s an ice queen, she’s a lost little girl, waiting for her prince. Every interview with her opens with a description of her clothes and ends with the question, so when are you going to get married?

Tony smiles and smiles and says, _why, are you offering?_

 

After Tony’s twenty-five, she starts being – trying to be – more discreet. There’s only so much she can take in terms of being under-estimated; only so many times she can turn it to her advantage before it stops being fun and starts being tiring.

She’s sick of being tired.

 

Sometimes someone will try to tell her that there are rumours about Obadiah Stane, that he treats people like shit, that he treats women like shit. Tony doesn’t listen.

He’s all she’s got.

 

Until: “I’ma go right ahead and call you Pepper.”

“I’ma go right ahead and escort the gentleman with the six-pack out.”

“They _are_ nice abs, aren’t they?”

The gentleman with the six pack blushes red. Pepper smiles.

 

Look, Tony’s not a girl; that’s what people keep on getting wrong.

Wait, wait, that came out wrong. She’s cis, and she’s bi. But see, there’s only so many times you can hear the press and your parents and your professors and your employees and your foster-father-figure tell you, whether explicitly or implicitly, that _you ain’t normal for a girl_ , before you stop really thinking of yourself as a girl – not like those other girls, you know the ones, the ones with the ponies and the dresses and the pink and the bad maths.

The _real_ girls.

Pepper says, she thinks a lot of girls go through that phase where they disparage their own gender. It’s a kind of defence mechanism? Like, I’m a girl, but _not like that_. Not the kind of girl you look down on. Pepper says, she thinks people use that as a way of coming to terms with the fact that they don’t, or won’t, perform traditional feminine gender roles, but won’t ever be, and in fact don’t want to be, a guy.

Pepper says, most people grow out of that, or get really fucked in the head.

Well.

 

Carol takes her flying and says, you think about this shit too much.

Tony says, I can’t hide up here like you do.

Carol says, it’s not hide and seek, Tony. It’s a shoot-out.

(Rhodey introduced them, and started regretting it within seconds. He’s a spoil-sport.)

 

They call her a trailblazer. She grins. What. Like Queen Elizabeth?

No, moron. The first one.

(Great Harry’s daughter.)

 

Tony’s an inventor; she has labs in every house she owns and more patents to her name than she can count. Even more inventions, innovations, that will never be patented because that would require making public their schematics, their secrets, the skeleton and the map of them.

Tony’s a patriot; she was taught to love her country, and she does. (Oh, honey. She’s always been a scoundrel.)

Tony’s an actor; the world is her stage and the dresses are her costumes. There’s a Shakespeare quote about that, somewhere.

Tony’s a liar; the sunglasses hide it.

 

Oh, by the way. Tony builds shit that kills people. Kills them dead, yes, blood and guts and skin in tatters.

That’s not normal for a girl, either.

 

They call her a merchant of death, but not for long, because some bright spark says _Morrigan_.

Three weeks later Tony does a spread for _Rolling Stone_ ; she wears armour, sprawls upon a throne of bones, and the sword she holds, planted upright in the ground between her feet, is stained with red.

It’s so much worse when it’s a woman, see. It’s like she kills ‘em personally. It’s _unnatural_.

 

So she’s the Morrigan. People tell her it’s cultural appropriation, and sure, Tony’s the first to admit she’d rather be Minerva. Her mom was Italian, that’s allowed. But, hey, man, what can you do? If she’d stopped to object to everything people had called her over the years she never would’ve made all this money.

 

Fuck, says Carol over the phone after the photo is published. Fuck, that is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Tony, you are amazing. Tony, I fucking adore you. Listen, I know a guy who does history re-enactments and shit, if I get you a scythe-wheeled chariot, will you promise to put it up on your front lawn?

 

People (men) don’t (often) care about the bi thing because it’s hot. Pepper doesn’t care about the bi thing because it doesn’t change the fact that Tony is her employer.

It takes Tony a while to properly get her head around this. They’re both women, aren’t they? In the world she moves in, this puts them both at the bottom of the food chain.

Pepper says it’s always been a mystery to her how Tony can be so fucking arrogant and still have such a persecution complex at the same time.

It isn’t paranoia if they really are out to get you, doll.

Come talk to me again when you’ve got over the urge to call me that, says Pepper. She’s smiling, but Tony sees her steel.

 

Come on. How could she not?

 

There’s an ice queen in the desert, flinging her hands out and smiling as the Earth shakes beneath her feet.

 

Remember how we said Tony’s a liar?

 

Yinsen says, I saw that spread you did for Rolling Stone. You celebrate it – it’s disgusting.

Tony says, if you make it yours, they can’t use it to hurt you.

Yinsen says, that’s nothing more than a philosophy of eternal defeat.

Defeat? says Tony, and laughs so loud and so long he thinks she’s hysterical. She can see it in his face. We’ll see. I’m not a very good loser. See, here’s the thing, Yinsen. You get to guilt me; the whole world guilts me, why not join in? But I don’t have to listen.

That’s how it works.

 

Yinsen thinks she doesn’t see what he’s doing when he sets her life up for her as a game to play, a challenge to face, a fight to win. He doesn’t realise that even if she knew what he was doing – and she does – it would still be effective.

People have been telling Tony _no_ all her life. None of them have ever offered viable alternatives before now.

 

She runs on batteries now.

 

The Morrigan has a heart, says Pepper, and cups a hand over it. Wow.

Stay with me. All the way.

In it for the long haul?

Stay with me. I’m turning this ship around; I’m turning everything around.

Her heart hums under both their fingers, spills light into the space between their bodies.

I love you.

I love you.

 

Obadiah says, you know, I used to think – and his hand moves, moves just slightly, cupping her heart in thick ungentle fingers, threatening Pepper, touches her breast. But I always figured it would be too much hassle. You haven’t changed, little girl. You’re still Daddy’s princess, waiting for a man to come run your life for you like Howard did.

Tony can’t move, can’t speak, can’t hardly breathe. He licks his lips in her face and leaves.

Tony puts her heart back into her chest, and Tony kills him, and Tony says, you’re right – this part of me hasn’t changed a bit.

 

(Is that what I do? she asks Pepper. Let men run my life?

 No. Pepper kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her. No. _I_ run your life. Remember?)

 

Volatile, says Natasha Romanov later on.

Self-obsessed, says Natasha Romanov later on.

Doesn’t play well with others, says Natasha Romanov later on.

Ruthless stone-cold bitch whom you, Director Fury, oughta be more afraid of than you are, says Natasha Romanov later on.

I like her, says Natasha Romanov. Recommendation?

 

They’ll put me on it, says Tony to Pepper, tapping the files with her fingertip. They’ll have to. They’re gonna want to make me theirs before I’m used to hurt them.

 

Keep her, says Natasha Romanov.

 

The idea of you belonging to anyone is one I find intrinsically amusing, says Pepper.

Tony says, I’ll belong to you for as long as you’ll have me, Miss Potts.

Pepper says, that’s only fair.

 

Sometimes, when it’s late and they’ve all had a few to drink, Tony and Pepper and Carol and Rhodey, Rhodey calls them the kindly ones. He’s wrong, of course. Tony’s always been a Morrigan. It’s not _her_ fault they meant it as a joke.

 


End file.
